5

THE BATTLE OF THE ANTS

That is not which is.

The only Word is Silence.

The only Meaning of that Word is not.

Thoughts are false.

Fatherhood is unity disguised as duality.

Peace implies war.

Power implies war.

Harmony implies war.

Victory implies war.

Glory implies war.

Foundation implies war.

Alas! for the Kingdom wherein all these are at war.

COMMENTARY (Ε)

He is the letter of Aries, a Martial sign; while the title suggests war. The ants are chosen as small busy objects.

Yet He, being a holy letter, raises the beginning of the chapter to a contemplation of the Pentragram, considered as a glyph of the ultimate.

In line 1, Being is identified with Not-Being.

In line 2, Speech with Silence.

In line 3, the Logos is declared as the Negative.

Line 4 is another phrasing of the familiar Hindu statement, that that which can be thought is not true.

In line 5, we come to an important statement, an adumbration of the most daring thesis in this book--Father and Son are not really two, but one; their unity being the Holy Ghost, the semen; the human form is a non-essential accretion of this quintessence.

So far the chapter has followed the Sephiroth from Kether to Chesed, and Chesed is united to the Supernal Triad by virtue of its Phallic nature; for not only is Amoun a Phallic God, and Jupiter the Father of All, but 4 is Daleth, Venus, and Chesed refers to water, from which Venus sprang, and which is the symbol of the Mother in the Tetragrammaton. See Chapter 0, "God the Father and Mother is concealed in generation".

But Chesed, in the lower sense, is conjoined to Microprosopus. It is the true link between the greater and lesser countenances, whereas Daath is the false. Compare the doctrine of the higher and lower Manas in Theosophy.

The rest of the chapter therefore points out the duality and therefore the imperfection, of all the lower Sephiroth in their essence.